Kindness is a Superpower

Kindness is a superpower.

I fully believe that. Kindness has the power to change the world, to transform lives, to make things better for everyone. So why is it underrated? Why is it seen as a weakness? Why is it easier for people to be cruel or nasty, to hide behind vitriolic words and criticism than to share a kind word?

Perhaps because kindness is a superpower that has to be mastered, developed and practiced regularly? Kindness, for some strange reason, does not often come naturally, and yet, we all know its power and we all desire it. So how can we develop our power to be kind and make this world better, not just for others, but for ourselves?

In A World Where You Can be Anything, #BeKind.

2020 began with a simple motto that flooded social media and was meant to spark a revolution in the way people responded to one another either online or in person. We were being encouraged to be kind to one another, to think before we spoke or posted comments. Yet this worthy message came at a time of international crisis and with the arrival of the Covid pandemic being kind seemed to fly out the window for many people.

#BeKind began as a reaction to the suicide of UK TV presenter, Caroline Flack, in February of 2020. In December 2019 Caroline posted on Instagram the phrase ‘In a world where you can be anything, be kind’. Precisely what Caroline intended with those words will never be known, but after her death her friends took up the saying and created the BeKind hashtag in a clamour for change, both among large media outfits and among individuals on the various social media channels. #BeKind was meant to be a reminder that people should not be harassed in any form, but especially anonymously through social media.

Before long, the phrase was flitting everywhere, I saw it for the first time on my Facebook feed as the introductory comment to a BBC article about Caroline Flack’s death. At that time, I confess, I had no idea who the woman was. Not being a fan of reality TV shows of the type Caroline appeared on, she had rather flown under my radar, but the message resonated.

Caroline’s message flew across the internet, but did it actually change anything? Did people stop for a moment and think about what they were posting online and consider if their words stung or hurt someone else? The evidence before us from 2020 does not inspire such a conclusion. If anything, the Covid crisis brought out a sense of selfishness in a lot of people – panic buying, disobeying government regulations, criticising, and judging one another on social media.

How can we practice kindness in a world where kindness seems to be rapidly on the decline?

The Judge Within

The truth of it is that being kind to others is a lot harder than we think. It is far more than the occasional pound coin in a charity box or allowing someone in a hurry to go ahead of us in the supermarket queue. To truly practice it, to be consistently, unequivocally kind is to be always watching ourselves for unkindness, not just to those around us, but to ourselves.

Kindness begins within. It is an idea many find difficult.

We all have a judge sitting inside our souls. It is the inner judge who speaks when we look in the mirror and notice a flaw – a new grey hair, a fresh wrinkle, a bit more weight than we would like. They are the one who finds criticism in the project we have been striving to finish for the last few hours, weeks, months. The longer it took to complete, often the harsher our inner judge critiques the end result.

Our judge can be subtle, or they can be harsh. Harsh inner judges are easier to point out. When we drop a cup and smash it, our inner voice yells – Why am I so stupid and clumsy? These judges harangue and berate us hours or even years after the incident has occurred and nothing can be done about it. They are the judges that erode our self-worth and our self-confidence.

The subtle judges are harder to spy. They are the insidious ones who sneak up upon us. They do not yell full-blown criticism, but they are still judging. We cook a special meal for our family, for instance, and as we look upon our creation with satisfaction and pleasure this subtle little judge pops up and says – oh, if only the sauce was a bit richer. I didn’t get those potatoes right. It doesn’t look as good on the plate as the picture in the recipe book.

We do not consider this judging ourselves, in fact, we may consider it praiseworthy humility. Yet it is a judgement, and that inner witness has knocked one more tiny notch off our self-esteem and is doing so in such a quiet, innocuous fashion, we never even notice.

Depending on the person, the judge within becomes the judge without to a greater or lesser extent. Some people are inherently able to keep the internal judge in his or her place, some are not, or do not care to. But whichever person we are, the judge is never kind and their actions do not improve us or the world around us.

We are Worthy of Kindness

If we desire to follow the buzzwords #BeKind – and surely we all want the world to be a kinder, better place? – then we must begin by turning to ourselves. If we cannot appreciate personal kindness, then how can we share kindness with anyone else? Kindness has to be a part of our everyday experience, yet few of us know how to make it so.

Children are naturally kind to themselves. They take time to play and bring themselves enjoyment. They do not think about time or whether their games are useful to others. They know how to make themselves happy and they do not judge themselves.

People consider this fragile innocence to be naïve, self-absorbed and unproductive; all very well in a small child, but adults must behave differently. As we grown-up we learn to judge ourselves and our actions, we learn to criticise others and to make kindness a precious gift to be hoarded and only bestowed on those worthy to receive it. Many of us do not fit ourselves into that notion of worthiness.

The true secret of kindness, the one people struggle to get their heads around, is that everyone deserves it. We are all worthy of kindness and the second we can appreciate that, then we can begin to counteract the judge within and become a person who truly practices kindness, not just when typed into a social media post.

We are worthy of kindness.

Take a moment and consider that, for it is a radical concept few of us can grasp hold of all at once.

You are worthy of kindness, just as I am worthy of kindness.

I shall make my second confession here and admit that this was a very novel concept to me, and it remains something I struggle with. My judge within is always present and can be a snide brute with words that hurt and sting. I am one of those souls who finds it easier to be kind to others than to myself.

I suppose, like many people, when I was told I was worthy of kindness all the time, not just when I was being nice, or when I was skinny, or when I was sad and people wanted to cheer me up, but All. The. Time. It was a revelation I was not prepared to accept. How could I be worthy of kindness when I was in a foul mood? Or when I had binged and broken my diet? Or when I had messed up?

That was my inner judge talking. Did I mention how mean our inner judges can be?

Society programmes us to believe we only deserve kindness when we have done something worthy of it. If someone is kind to someone who is nasty, or behaving in an unpleasant way, we consider them naïve. If it is in a television programme or movie, quite often this person comes to a sticky end because they were kind to the person the rest of us considered did not deserve kindness. We nod sagely – well what did they expect?

Here’s the rub; that person was right, they just went the wrong way about things.

The Kindness Within

If we are going to make this a kind world, then we have to start with ourselves. That is the simple truth. Look within and take a good note of the judge sitting inside your soul. When is the last time they spoke? Perhaps not as long ago as we would like.

The judge will never completely go away, but we can change how we react to them and in the process begin learning the art of unconscious, mindful kindness. The sort of kindness Caroline’s quote is all about, not the lip-service kindness many people toss out to pretend they are doing the world a favour. No, the deep down, unrelenting, kindness that never stops being kind, not for a second, not in the face of flaws or harshness.

To achieve that sort of kindness, well, it’s a big ask, but imagine a world where that was the norm instead of judgement, fear of failure, and self-criticism? It would be a pretty magical place.

True kindness is selfless because it expects nothing in return, not even a word of thanks. That is why it is tough to achieve because most of us are selfish in some way. It is natural, don’t judge it, just accept it.

That is the first step of taking down the inner judge. Find something about ourselves we would normally berate – 'I am so selfish, it makes me a terrible person'. That is the judge talking, let’s take a kinder stance. Imagine there is this new person sitting without our soul. They do not judge, instead they smile benevolently and when they see something imperfect within, they alert us to it gently – 'I can be selfish sometimes. That doesn’t make me a bad person and I am going to make the effort to change it'.

The difference between these two reactions to the same thing has an impact on how we respond. The inner judge makes us feel angry at ourselves, embarrassed, unhappy, despondent. All negative things. While the inner benevolence makes us feel positive by seeing how we can make ourselves better without destroying our self-worth.

This takes practice because the inner judge has usually had free rein for a long time and we tend to listen to him/her more, but when we stop and listen to our inner benevolence, we begin to change. It doesn’t matter if five minutes after we spoke to ourselves kindly, we act selfish again, it is the same response. We recognise we were selfish, we realise it is not something that makes us fundamentally a bad person and we make the decision to change. And if we falter a thousand times, we still respond the same way.

Each time we are reinforcing our understanding of unequivocal kindness and practice the tools we need to share it.

Taking Kindness into the World

So maybe you are thinking, well if I am nice to myself every time I am selfish, I am just encouraging my selfishness. You are not, for several reasons. You are recognising when you are selfish and that is the first step to stopping a negative habit. You are developing your ‘kindness muscles’ which will help you to be less selfish in the future (because the inner judge is selfish, inner benevolence is selfless) and you are nudging yourself along to change.

Even if you are not convinced by that, it is important to try this because we are practicing not just for ourselves, but so we can then share that same selfless kindness to others. Kindness can be hard to share with a person we dislike, or whose actions we dislike, but, as we have already seen, everyone is worthy of kindness, even that unpleasant person at work you can’t stand. So, by practicing on ourselves and being kind about our flaws, we can begin to find a way to be kind to others and their flaws.

This is not easy, and it is the part of ultimate kindness that many people find off-putting – I don’t have to be kind to that person I can’t stand, surely?

Well, as I said, kindness is universal. It is not a gift to be granted to those we think deserve it. In actual fact, sometimes it is the people we deem least deserving who need kindness the most.

Kindness Without Limits

That reminds of something I did several years ago, and which helped spark me to appreciate that kindness is at its best when it is selfless.

As a writer, I spent a lot of time at the local library collecting books for research. I usually came in with a bulging bag of books and went away equally loaded with volumes. I was often there weekly, and I remember there was this one librarian who often served me and was, quite frankly, the most miserable person I had ever met. He never smiled, he always acted as if serving me was a chore he would prefer not to have to do, and he definitely was not a pleasure to be around.

One day I decided that I would not allow his negativity to bring me down, instead I would respond to his unhappiness with kindness. I went up to him, I smiled, I asked how he was and thanked him politely when all my books were sorted. This went on for several weeks and there was no apparent response to my kindness – the librarian remained miserable and barely acknowledged me. I persisted, nonetheless.

Then, one day I walked into the library and up to the desk and I was greeted with a smile and – “Hello, how are you today?” To say I was surprised is an understatement, it was like an alien had replaced the normal librarian, but of course I smiled back, and we had a conversation.

This single moment made me realise how powerful kindness could be. I had not made a grand gesture, I merely smiled and was, well, kind.

I like to think of kindness as a drop of paint or ink on wet paper. As the paint hits the page it is a pinpoint, but rapidly it spreads out wider and wider, tiny fingers emerge from the edges reaching out, onward and onward. The spread is uncontrollable and the more that is dropped onto the paper, the more the paint flares out.

Some people talk of an act of kindness like a ripple in water that spreads outwards. But ripples fade. The blot of paint or ink on paper is permanent, a permanent change – that is the true power of kindness and why even one person contributing kindness to the world can make a difference.

The Power of Three Gates

Being kind is sometimes more challenging than others, and that is especially the case on social media where it is easy to see a post and jump in with both feet, criticising the person and condemning what they have done/are going to do, what they believe in/don’t believe in or what they have said/not said. Such reactions can make us feel better as we vent our thoughts, they rarely change the situation or make the other person feel differently, except in a negative sense.

So, how do we change this impulse?

There is a Sufi saying that applies to such moments and is worth remembering, it goes:

Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:

Is it true?

Is it Necessary?

Is it Kind?

Allowing our words to pass through these filters before we use them in our daily interactions can be truly enlightening and even those of us who are trying to be kind can find moments when we have failed the three gates test.

Imagine if everyone responding to a question or post on social media took the time to do this? How different would be the responses, how much more productive and much more positive. The world cannot be changed by criticism, we can see that in ourselves. It can be changed by genuine kindness.

The superpower that is kindness is underappreciated all too often. It is not naïve, it is not fruitless, it does not stop us succeeding, but it does transform our ideas of success. Kindness is not something we should do for praise or thanks. In fact, kindness is often the most powerful when we do not expect a response. It is the smile to a stranger who we shall never see again. The ‘thank you’ to a shopworker who doesn’t know our name. It is a million small things that everyone can offer, and yet so few do.

Kindness is a power no one can take from us. It is a strength that will carry us through the toughest storm. True, unthinking, unbiased kindness is the sort of thing that could transform your world.

Start with that little speck of kindness in your soul and nurture it, grow it, trust it and let it blossom, and then see what magic you can spread around you, what seeds of kindness you can plant. You may never see the fruit they bear, you just have to trust that they do.